Betwixt & Between

Part 7

Warning: References to m/m sex in this chapter!

Tom felt was unusually anxious as Chakotay led them to the bed. It wasn't like this was new to him. He'd had sex with men before, none since his time in the academy but it's like riding a bike, right? You never really forget how. The mechanics of it weren't unknown to him. He knew how to do this but it wasn't helping with his nerves.

They'd been leading up to this for some time. In Tom's previous relationships they'd have had sex by now but this was different. This meant more to him than his previous trysts. He felt as though he was making a commitment to Chakotay. Who would have thought that Tom Paris would settle down? The man who would nearly go into anaphylactic shock at the mention of commitment was off the market. Surprisingly it was comforting. Knowing that he'd always have a place to return to and someone who would support him no matter what –it was all quite new to Tom. With his previous partners they'd always placed value in his image, in his family connection, never in just him. Even in his family the prospect of unconditional love and acceptance was foreign. There'd always been a sense that if he failed he would no longer be part of the family. It had proven true after Caldik Prime. A message from his father telling him to move out of their house in San Francisco, the cold shoulder he received from his two older sisters was enough to let him know that he had feared correctly.

However, now he was ready to trust someone again. Chakotay wasn't the type to hurt someone he cared about. It was plain to see how much he cherished his family and friends and now Tom felt like that privilege was his as well. Or so he hoped. What if Chakotay didn't know how much this meant?

He felt a touch at his face and finally noticed Chakotay standing in front of him. They were next to the bed but Tom couldn't tell how long they'd been standing there. "You spacing out on me again?" He smiled and pulled Tom into a kiss before he could respond. The gentle caress of Chakotay's fingers on his cheek, the soft lips, the arms wrapped around his waist dissolved all doubts. Tom put all his emotion into the kiss, returning the embrace of his lover. Chakotay pulled away and looked into the sky blue eyes. He continued the gentle caress as he said, "You can trust me."

In those words, with that touch he conveyed the regret for the way he'd treated Tom before, and a promise that this was no passing fancy.

"Ugh…"

"Good morning to you too."

Slow uncoordinated contraction of muscles in and near his neck managed to turn Tom's head to the source of the voice. "Mmph," was all the greeting he could manage.

"Not a morning person, are you?" Tom just closed his eyes to his lover. It shouldn't be possible to be that cheerful in the morning. How could he be totally awake already? Tom opened his eyes and noticed that Chakotay was in uniform and lying on top of the sheets rather than naked between the sheets. He frowned.

"Why're you up already?" Tom mumbled.

Chakotay was still smiling. "We start early today remember. You know. Beginning the jumps to the Beta Quadrant. Detouring through Alorem space. Getting home." Chakotay was still wary of what would happen when they returned to Sector 001 but he'd had several discussion with Captain Janeway and he's made several contingency plans for everyone who might be in jeopardy, Tom included. Thus, he was feeling rather excited. Tom however wasn't.

He had tried to schedule Baytart to take them for today but Captain Janeway and Chakotay insisted that it be him. Not only was he the Chief Helmsman so he should be the one to begin this historic journey into the unknown, but also because this was unknown they needed the best pilot at the helm. They data they collected from the probes in particular indicated that crossing the threshold between the two spaces would be the most difficult. The rest should be smooth sailing.

"If you don't get up soon you'll be late," Chakotay warned. "What do you want for breakfast?" he walked to the replicator reciting options, all on him. Tom glowered at Chakotay's cheerful mood but it was good to see him happy. As Tom watched him he got the feeling that this is what mornings would be like for the duration of there relationship. He smiled at that thought and sat up, only to wince when a sharp pain remided him of last night's activities. It didn't stop his smile. After the shock of the pain subsided his smile returned full force plus a few watts brighter.

"Pancakes," Tom called to Chakotay his breakfast order.

"Coming right up!"

Today could be the beginning of a very good day.

After the first shaky jump into Alorem space most the following ones were smooth. Adhering to the strict guidelines given by the Alorem council they stayed away from Alorem establishments and structures to prevent damage. All scans were passive but in realm where life forms were energy and emitted energy they still gained vast amounts of data. The journey was also filled with splendid images of Alorem civilization. Whole cities of energy beings and structures twinkled on the veiwscreen like San Francisco at twilight. Of course as matter beings they could never visit these foreign metropolises. They're curiousity about day-to-day Alorem life only grew with these brushes with the cities and while Tom tried to answer most of the questions there were many to which he had absolutely no knowledge about and many that had not even occurred to him.

Voyager's frequently returned to regular space for supplies and shoreleave. Too much time cooped up together would only cause problems and it was important to maintain Voyager's hardware, software and crew. They were three days ahead of schedule with seventy-two percent of their journey complete when, after leaving Maloras Prime and the friendly inhabitants, they're good fortune ran dry. The Relor were back.

Voyager's presence created an unforeseen breach in the Alorem Defensive Grid. The vessels course was close to the border of Alorem territory to reduce chance encounters with Alorem people and structures. Another requirement was that Voyager always had its shields up to maintain the intergrity of Voyager and prevent harmful energy exhaust from the warp engines from causing any damage. What no one had anticipated was that interaction between photons from the defense grid and Voyager's shield would distort and in sometimes nullify the grid. This was a problem particularly when they crossed between normal and Alorem space. Although instances of grid nullification where rare they provided the enemy Relor and means of crossing, undetected, into Alorem territory.

Violent tremors racked the ship tossing personnel from their stations to floor and sometimes into walls. They were caught dead in the middle of the threshold between the two spaces, held in place by an unknown force. What they did know was that Relor signatures could be found around them on the side of the ship that was in Alorem space and the numbers were increasing.

"Tom, get us out of here!" Janeway's order could barely be heard over the shaking, alerts and frequent overloading of consoles.

Tom did his best and tried every combination of warp frequencies he could imagine until the nacelles threatened to fly of their pylons. Nothing made a difference. "I can't get us free!"

"I'm detecting Alorem signatures," announced Kim. "They're a lot bigger than usual…" On his monitors the Alorem where twenty times bigger and emitted eight thousand times the usual energy. "It looks like their engaging the Relor." Tom continued to try and free the ship while engineering routed more power to the engines it was making a small difference but they needed more. The extra push they needed would not come by conventional means.

Beyond the hull of Voyager and into Alorem space the battle raged. With Voyager trapped at the threshold the grid remained null and Relor forces leaked inside. The Alorem who attempted to resist the Relor where no ordinary Alorem. Just as humanoid species got to war in ship, planes and reinforced armour, so too do the Alorem. Their reinforcement was, as one would expect, comprised of energy –different types harnessed to amplify and accurately direct the pilot's own power. They are not invincible however and many would succumb to the growing force of the Relor attack but one new Relor weapon in particular threatened to decimate all of them.

From the largest Relor attacker came a sudden burst of strange energy, undocumented even to the Alorem. A moment later the border was quiet with only Voyager, caught in the threshold crackling with unbalanced energy. All Alorem and Relor ships were temporiarily disabled. As the crew of Voyager observed in confusion the Relor ships regained operation first and managed to heavily damage and in some cases destroy the Alorem forces. On the Voyager sensors they could see the much smaller and much weaker pilots bailing from their downed contraption but some where destroyed with their machines.

The Alorem forces eventually regained operation and a blanket command from Alorem commanders to rotate their base frequency in hopes of making the new weapon less effective worked. The second time the weapon was fired more Relor ships than Alorem were disabled resulting in major losses for the Relor. The stubborn Relor decided on a third and final activation of their weapon. The battlefield was silenced absolutely this time. The ship carrying the weapon was destroyed a few seconds after its activation due to system overload, taking many nearby Relor ships with it. All vehicles on both sides of the conflict were deadened. The pulse deflected somewhat by Voyager's shields caused the vessel to be pushed back into normal space with a minimal amount of physical damage. Voyager's violent ejection from Alorem space created a field with a net negative force that pulled nearby ships towards it causing many of the Relor ships to be pulled back out of Alorem territory.

While Alorem and Relor recovered their downed combatants, damages and casualties were being counted on Voyager as well. Many of the ships systems were scrambled but a reboot would fix those errors. Cuts, bruises, a few burns and some broken bones were reported but by far the most serious was the chief helmsman.

As Chakotay directed repairs he could not escape the horror of those last moments. They had just been thrust back into normal space when Chakotay saw Tom slumped onto the helm controls unmoving. While Janeway and the other's cleared their head and picked themselves off the deck Chakotay was stumbling towards his lover. The dim light from the console coloured the pale skin and reflected a strange rainbow from the open eyes. He pulled Tom away from the console to rest on the back of the chair while Chakotay cradled his head. Tom was absolutely still and as the rest of the bridge crew took notice of them they fell still as well, watching helplessly as events transpired.

"Tom," he'd called softly and then again more desperately. He touched the cooling face and motionless chest and felt no life. Panic began to creep over his senses causing his skin to tingle and a cool sweat to slick his skin. Over his accelerating breathing he heard Kim cry out in frustration as transporters failed over and over to get a lock on his friend. "Tom…" it had been a near whisper from his trembling lips. Then Chakotay thought he was hallucinating. Something began to flow out of Tom and dissipate in all directions. It was a translucent blue-grey colour and it passed through the air and all object like they didn't exist.

It had not been a hallucination as he would discover when to spoke to the others. The torrent of strange mist-like substance had been Tom's Alorem energy leaving his body. The pulse from the Relor weapon had not being entirely deflected by Voyager's shields and it had damaged the Alorem part of Tom enough that the very energy that sustained him seeped away like blood spills from a wound.

Suddenly Chakotay's arms had been empty the blue shimmer of light bringing back memories of Tom's earlier death in the shuttlebay but his thinking brain kicked in indicating that it was more likely the transporter beam. "He's in Sickbay," Kim stated a moment later, easing Chakotay's panic further. A shaking hand ran down his face and somehow he found the strength to move, to speak, to command.

It was almost 0200 and the ship was quiet again. All injured personnel except Tom had been sent home. Sickbay was dimmed. Chakotay sat alone next to his near dead lover. Unable to even hold his hand he stared alternately at the floor and at Tom's pale face half concealed by the breathing mask of the respirator –one of many medical inventions keeping his body alive. He'd been placed in forcefeild usually used to restrain patients who'd suffered extreme internal and spinal injuries but in Tom's case it kept what little was left of his energy from trickling away. Chakotay sighed. He was tired but on a previous attempt was unable to sleep so he came back here and contemplated his and Tom's rotten luck.

This ephemeral glance at happiness was not enough for him. The last six and a half months during the leaps had given Chakotay more time to know and love Tom. He'd briefly touched upon understanding the happiness and sense of belonging he'd seen between his parents. Finally, he'd found his other half. It could not end like this.

Perhaps the Alorem had some sort of treatment for this. They'd sent a message to Osa but Nie had been the one to respond and visit the ship. He'd briefly given them an account of what had happened on their side, taken a scan of Tom and then left to deliver the information to his superiors. The faint frown on the light-blue being was not comforting but he left with a promise that they would find a way to save him. Chakotay at one point had made a careless comment about the false sense of invincibility Osa had portrayed to them when Tom had first returned. Nie response had been blunt and his tone razor sharp.

"He's been given gifts that allow him to survive but he has also been cursed with new ways to die. He's both, stronger and weaker than all of us. We have never claimed otherwise." It was then plain to see that Tom's condition was affecting Nie as well. He thought of himself as an uncle, given his closeness to Osa and being one of the first to meet the man when he was only human. Now he was only half of both. And thanks to the Relor he was half dead as well. That's how the Doctor at least tried to describe it.

Looking at Tom with even the most invasive scan indicated that he was a perfectly healthy adult male. By human terms Tom was fine but that was only half of it. As the incident with B'Elanna and the Vidians had shown, a hybrid can not live as one half, requiring that the Doctor reincorporate B'Elanna's Klingon DNA. This was a parallel situation with Tom's Alorem half being so badly injured that he can no longer sustain himself. His heart would not beat without assistance. His lungs only worked because the air was forced in and then sucked out manually. His brain function was just above the level of brain dead. What was left of the two energy nodes were several orders of magnitude smaller and weaker than they had been and they continued to fade. Nothing the Doctor tried made a difference. According to Nie even the Alorem were yet able to revive their people who'd been injured by the Relor weapon. The situation was grim but they still had their hope. Unfortunately, Tom couldn't be revived with hope.

Chakotay felt a presence near him and heard someone moving about. Slowly he returned to wakefulness. He sat up from slumped position and covered a wide yawn.

"Good morning, Commander," The Doctor greeted while he continued to check Tom over.

"Anything?"

"There's been no change over night. I would suggest that you get some rest back in your quarters. Sleeping in a chair is not good for your back."

"I know. I know." He couldn't recall when he'd fallen asleep. Though his back protested he knew he'd gotten more sleep here than he ever would have in his own bed without Tom next to him. "What are you doing?" the Commander asked when he noticed the Doctor was turning off Tom's monitoring equipment as switching the life support to and independent system.

"There's been damage to Sickbays main operating system from yesterday. It's minor but the engineering crew wants to reboot the system and replace several components to ensure that there could not be any malfunction of the system especially when Mr. Paris is relying on it."

Chakotay recalled the Kim listed sickbay as one of the systems that needed to be repaired. "So where are you moving him while this is being done?"

"Cargo Bay Two has sufficient space and power to run the medical equipment. It's also only two levels down. Ensign Wildman and I will be there to monitor him and provide care to anyone who needs medical attention."

Chakotay nodded and sat back in his chair staring at the ceiling. The Doctor was tempted to offer some words of reassurance but they all sounded quite trite and clichéd. Maybe it was just that his programming was too imperfect to constitute the correct wording –in any of the many languages available to him –or maybe there was nothing to say.

End Part 7

Sagga Bott...